Nellie Bly was the pen name of the American journalist Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman. She was a pioneer in the field of journalism and widely known for completing a round the world trip in 72 days.
Bly’s first job as a journalist was for the The Pittsburgh Dispatch. She got the job after writing an infuriated response to an article entitled “What Girls Are Good For” which suggested that women should not have an eduacation or career and should stay at home. Her reponse, titled “Little Orphan Girl” was so good that it was published and won her a job at the paper where she first used the pen name ‘Nellie Bly’. Bly refused to write the articles usually assigned to women – gardening, fashion or society- and instead focused on hard pressing stories on the poor and oppressed and began her foray into investigative journalism posing as a sweatshop worker to expose poor working conditions faced by women Businesses did not like the fact that a women was writing on these topics and threatened to pull their advertising so she was assigned a gardening article. She promptly resigned.
Bly then moved to New York where she worked for the New York World after months of rejection from other papers. One of her earliest articles was based on her experiences going undercover at the Women’s Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island. She exposed the filthy conditions, rotten food and physical abuse from doctors and nurses. She was there for ten days and wrote the articles “Behind Asylum Bars” and “Inside The Mad-House” which forced an investigation into the facility and significant improvements in its health care. She later published ‘Ten Days in a Mad House’.
Bly was a pioneer in the field of investigative journalism. She exposed crooked lobbyists in government, tracked the plight of unwanted babies, reported on the conditions for poor workers in box-making factories and more by completing undercover invesigations.
Bly achieved further fame while travelling around the world in 72 days to try and break the record in Jules Verne’s fictional 1873 novel ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’. She completed the trip in 72 days, 6 hours, 11 minutes and 14 seconds.
Bly married Robert Seaman in 1895 and by 1896 had stopped writing for The World. She became heavily involved in the Iron Clad Manufacturing Co., which Seaman was the owner of. She patented a milk can of her own design and when Seaman died took over the company to become the world’s leading female industrialist until 1914 when the company was forced into bankrupcy.
Bly returned to journalism, becoming the America’s first female war correspondent for the The New York Evening Journal during World War 1. She wrote articles on her experiences at the war’s front lines and completed a five year tour of duty.
After the war Bly wrote a regular column for The Evening Journal, in it she dispensed advice as well as her opinion on topics of the day like the Woman Suffrage Parade of 1913. In her coverage, titled “Suffragists Are Men’s Superiors” she also predicted that it would be 1920 before women would win the vote. Bly also helped poor women find jobs and raised money to aid widows, children and others who faced hard times. She remained a journalist until her death.